Good Girl Bad Blood
good girl, bad blood chapter 1
You think you'd know what a killer sounds like.
That their lies would have a different texture; some barely perceptible shift. A voice that thickens, grows sharp and uneven as the truth slips beneath the jagged edges. You'd think that, wouldn't you? Everyone thinks they'd know, if it came down to it. But Pip hadn't.
'It's such a tragedy what happened in the end.
Sitting across from him, looking into his kind, crinkled eyes, her phone between them recording every sound and sniff and throat-clearing huff. She'd believed it all, every word.
Pip traced her fingers across the mousepad, skipping the audio file back again.
'It's such a tragedy what happened in the end.
Elliot Ward's voice rang out from the speakers once more, filling her darkened bedroom. Filling her head.
Stop. Click. Repeat.
'It's such a tragedy what happened in the end.'
She'd listened to it maybe a hundred times. Maybe even a
thousand. And there was nothing, no giveaway, no change as he slipped between lies and half-truths. The man she'd once looked to as an almost-father. But then, Pip had lied too,
1
Hadn't she? And she could tell herself she'd done it to protect the people she loved, but wasn't that the exact same reason Elliot gave? Pip ignored that voice in her head; the truth was out, most of it, and that's the thing she clung to.
She kept going, on to the other part that made her hairs stand on end.
'And do you think Sal killed Andie?" asked Pip's voice from the past.
'.... be was such a lovely kid. But, considering the evidence, I don't see how he couldn't have done it. So, as wrong as it feels, I guess I think he must have. There's no other
explanation -'
Pip's door pushed inward with a slap.
'What are you doing?" interrupted a voice from right now, one that lifted with a smirk because he knew damn well what she was doing.
"You scared me, Ravi," she said, annoyed, darting forward to pause the audio. Ravi didn't need to hear Elliot Ward's voice, not ever again.
You're sitting here in the dark listening to that, but I'm the scary one?" Ravi said, flicking on the light switch, the yellow glow reflecting off the dark hair swept across his forehead. He pulled that face, the one that always got her, and Pip smiled because it was impossible not to. She wheeled
anyway?" back from her desk. 'How did you get in
Your parents and Josh were on their way out, with a very.
Impressive looking lemon tart."
'Oh yes,' she said. "They're on neighbourly welcome duties. A young couple have just moved into the Chens' house down the street. Mum did the deal. The Greens...or maybe the Browns, can't remember."
It was strange, thinking of another family living in that house, new lives reshaping to fill its old spaces. Pip's friend Zach Chen had always lived there, four doors down, ever since Pip had moved here aged five. It wasn't a real goodbye; she still saw Zach at school every day, but his parents had decided they could no longer live in this town, not after all that trouble. Pip was certain they considered her a large part of all that trouble.
'Dinner's seven thirty by the way,' Ravi said, his voice suddenly skipping clumsily over the words. Pip looked at him; he was wearing his nicest shirt tucked in at the front, and... were those new shoes? She could smell aftershave too, as he stepped towards her, but he stopped short, didn't kiss her on the forehead nor run a hand through her hair. Instead he went to sit on her bed, fiddling with his hands.
'Meaning you're almost two hours early,' Pip smiled.
'Y-yeah.' He coughed.
Why was he being awkward? It was Valentine's Day, their first since knowing each other, and Ravi had booked them a table at The Siren, out of town. Pip's best friend Cara was convinced Ravi was going to ask Pip to be his girlfriend tonight. She said she'd put money on it. The thought made
Something in Pip's stomach swell, spilling its heat up into her chest. But it might not be that: Valentine's Day was also Sal's birthday. Ravi's older brother would have turned twenty-four today, if he'd made it past eighteen.
How far have you got?" Ravi asked, nodding at her laptop, the audio editing software Audacity filling her screen with spiky blue lines. The whole story was there, contained within those blue lines. From the start of her project to the very end;
every lie, every secret. Even some of her own.
'It's done,' Pip said, dropping her eyes to the new USB microphone plugged into her computer. 'I've finished. Six episodes. I had to use a noise reduction effect on some of the
phone interviews for quality, but it's done.'
And in a green plastic file, beside the microphone, were the release forms she'd sent out to everyone. Signed and returned, granting her permission to publish their interviews in a podcast. Even Elliot Ward had signed one, from his prison cell. Two people had refused: Stanley Forbes from the town newspaper and, of course, Max Hastings. But Pip didn't need their voices to tell the story; she'd filled in the gaps with her
Production log entries, now recorded as monologues. 'You've finished already?' Ravi said, though he couldn't really be surprised. He knew her, maybe better than anyone else.
It had been just a couple of weeks since she'd stood up in the school hall and told everyone what really happened. Buy the media still weren't telling the story right; even now they
Clung to their own angles because they were cleaner, neater. Yet the Andie Bell case had been anything but neat.
'If you want something done right, you have to do it yourself,' Pip said, her gaze climbing the spiking audio clips. Right then, she couldn't decide whether this felt like something beginning or something ending. But she knew which she wanted it to be.
'So, what's next?" asked Ravi.
'I export the episode files, upload them to Soundcloud on schedule, once a week, and then copy the RSS feed to podcast directories like iTunes and Stitcher. But I'm not quite finished,' she said. 'I need to record the intro, over this theme song I found on Audio Jungle. But to record an intro, you need a title.'
'Ah,' Ravi said, stretching back, 'we're still title-less are we, Lady Fitz-Amobi?"
'We are," she said. 'I've narrowed it down to three options.'
'Hit me,' he said.
'No, you'll be mean about them.'
'No, I won't,' he said earnestly, with the smallest of smiles.
'OK.' She looked down at her notes. 'Option A is: An Examination into a Miscarriage of Justice. Wha- Ravi, I can see you laughing."
That was a yawn, I swear.'
"Well, you won't like option B either because that's A Study
into a Closed Case: The Andie Bell - Ravi, stop!'
'What'm sorry, I can't help it,' he said, laughing until his
Eyes lined with tears. 'It's just ... of all your many qualities, Pip, there's one thing you lack -'
'Lack?" She spun her chair to face him. 'I lack something?"
'Yes,' he said, meeting her attempt at stony eyes. 'Pizazz You are almost entirely pizazzless, Pip.
'I am not pizazzless.'
'You need to draw people in, intrigue them. Have a word like "kill" or "dead" in there."
'But that's sensationalism.'
'And that's exactly what you want, for people to actually listen,' he said.
"But all of my options are accurate and -'
"Boring?"
Pip threw a yellow highlighter at him.
You need something that rhymes, or alliteration. Something with....
'Pizazz?" she said in her Ravi voice. 'You think of one then.'
'Crime Time,' he said. 'No, oh Little Kilton...maybe Little Kill Town.
'Ew, no,' said Pip
'You're right.' Ravi got up, started to pace. 'Your unique selling point is, really, you. A seventeen-year-old who solved a case the police had long considered closed. And what are you?" he looked at her, squinting his eyes.
'Lacking, clearly," she said with mock irritation 'A student, Ravi thought aloud. "A girl. Project. Oh, how about Project Murder and Me?"
Nah.'
'Pizazz.
'OK...' He chewed his lip and it made Pip's stomach tighten. 'So, something murder, or kill or dead. And you are Pip, who's a student and a girl who's good at...oh shit,' he said suddenly, eyes widening. I've got it!'
'What?" she said.
'I've literally got it,' he said, far too pleased with himself.
'What is it?"
'A Good Girl's Guide to Murder.'
'Noooo.' Pip shook her head. 'That's bad, way too try- hard.'
'What are you talking about? It's perfect.'
'Good girl?" she said, dubiously. 'I turn eighteen in two weeks; I won't contribute to my own infantilization.'
'A Good Girl's Guide to Murder,' Ravi said in his deep, movie-trailer voice, pulling Pip up from her chair and spinning her towards him.
'No,' she said.
"Yes,' he retorted, placing one hand on her waist, his warm fingers dancing up her ribs.
'Absolutely not.'
If you haven't yet listened to episode 6 of A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, look away now. Serious spoilers below.
Of course, many of us knew how this mystery ended, from when it exploded on to the news cycles last November, but the whodunnit wasn't the whole story here. The real story of A Good Girl's Guide to Murder has been the journey, from a 17-year-old sleuth's hunch about a closed case- the murder of teenager Andie Bell, allegedly by her boyfriend Sal Singh - to the spiralling web of dark secrets
she uncovers in her small town. The ever-shifting suspects
The lies and the twist.
The final episode certainly isn't lacking in twists as it brings us the truth, starting with Pip's shocking revelation that Elliot Ward, her best friend's father, wrote the threatening notes Pip received during het hervestigation. Irrefutable proof of his involvement and truly a loss of
Moment for Pip. She and Ravi Singh - Sal's younger brother and co-detective on this case - believed that Andie Bell might still be alive and Elliot had been keeping her the whole time. Pip confronted Elliot Ward alone and, recounting Ward's words, the whole story unravels. An illicit relationship between student and teacher, allegedly initiated by Andie. "If true," Pip theorizes, "I think Andie wanted an escape from Little Kilton, particularly from her father who allegedly, according to a source, was controlling and emotionally abusive. Perhaps Andie believed Mr Ward could get her a place at Oxford, like Sal, so she could get far away from home."
The night of her disappearance, Andie went to Elliot Ward's house. An argument ensued. Andie tripped, hitting her head against his desk. But as Ward rushed to get a first aid kit, Andie disappeared into the night. In the following days as Andie was officially declared missing, Elliot Ward panicked, believing Andie must have died from her head injury and when police eventually found her body, there might be evidence that would lead back to him. His only chance was to give them a more convincing suspect. "He cried as he told me," Pip says, "how he killed Sal Singh." Ward made it look like suicide and planted evidence so police would think Sal killed his girlfriend and then himself.
But, months later, Ward was shocked to see Andie walking on the side of the road, thin and dishevelled. She hadn't died after all, Ward couldn't allow her to return to Little Kilton, and that's how she ended up his prisoner for five
Years. However, in a twist truly stranger than fiction: the person in Ward's loft wasn't Andie Bell. "She looked so much like her," Pip claims, "she even told me she was Andie." But she was actually Isla Jordan, a vulnerable young woman with an intellectual disability. All this time, Elliot had convinced himself - and Isla - that she was Andie Bell.
This left the final question of what happened to the real Andie Bell? Our young detective beat the police to that too. "It was Becca Bell, Andie's little sister." Pip worked out that Becca had been sexually assaulted at a house party (nicknamed calamity parties), and that Andie had sold drugs at these parties, including Rohypnol which Becca suspected played a part in her assault. When Andie was out that night with Ward, Becca allegedly found proof in her sister's room that Max Hastings had bought Rohypnol from Andie and was likely Becca's attacker (Max will soon face trial for several rape and sexual assault charges). But when Andie returned, she didn't react in the way Becca hoped; Andie forbade her little sister from going to the police because it would get her in trouble. They started arguing. pushing, until Andie ended up on the floor, unconscious and vomiting. Andie's post-mortem - completed last November when her body was finally recovered - showed that "Andie's brain swelling from a head trauma was not fatal. Though it, no doubt, caused Andie's loss of consciousness and vomiting, Andie Bell died from asphyxiation, choking on her own vomit. Becca froze allegedly watching Andie die, too shocked, too angry to
Save her sister's life. Hiding her body because she was scared no one would believe it was an accident.
And there it is, our ending. "No angles or filters, just the sad truth of how Andie Bell died, how Sal was murdered and set up as her killer and everyone believed it." In Pip's scathing conclusion, she picks out everyone she finds at fault for the deaths of these two teenagers, naming and blaming: Elliot Ward, Max Hastings, Jason Bell (Andie's father), Becca Bell, Howard Bowers (Andie's drug dealer), and Andie Bell herself.
A Good Girl's Guide to Murder stormed to the top of the iTunes chart with its first episode six weeks ago and it looks set to stay there for some time. With the final episode released last night, listeners are already clamouring for a season two of the hit podcast. But in a statement posted to her website, Pip said: "I'm afraid my detective days are over and there will not be a second season of AGGGTM. This case almost consumed me; I could only see that once I was out the other side. It became an unhealthy obsession, putting me and those around me in considerable danger. But I will finish this story, recording updates on the trials and verdicts of all those involved. I promise I will be here until the very last word."
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good girl, bad blood chapter 2
It was still there, every time she opened the front door. It wasn't real, she knew that, just her mind filling in the absence, bridging the gap. She heard it: dog claws skittering, rushing to welcome her home. But it wasn't, it couldn't be. Just a memory, the ghost of a sound that had always been there.
'Pip, is that you?' her mum called from the kitchen.
'Hey,' Pip replied, dropping her bronze rucksack in the hall, textbooks thumping together inside.
Josh was in the living room, sitting on the floor two feet from the TV, spooling through the adverts on the Disney Channel. 'You'll get square eyes,' Pip remarked as she walked by.
'You'll get a square butt,' Josh tittered back. A terrible retort, objectively speaking, but he was quick for a ten-year-old.
'Hi darling, how was school?' her mum asked, sipping from a flowery mug as Pip walked into the kitchen and settled on one of the stools at the counter.
'Fine. It was fine.' School was always fine now. Not good, not bad. Just fine. She pulled off her shoes, the leather unsticking from her feet and smacking against the tiles.
'Ugh,' her mum said. 'Must you always leave your shoes in the kitchen?"
Must you always catch me doing it?"
'Yes, I'm your mother," she said, whacking Pip's arm lightly with her new cookbook. 'Oh and, Pippa, I need to talk to you
about something."
The full name. So much meaning in that extra syllable.
'Am I in trouble?"
Her mum didn't answer the question. 'Flora Green called me from Josh's school today. You know she's the new teaching assistant there?"
'Yes...' Pip nodded for her to continue.
'Joshua got in trouble today, sent to the headteacher.' Her mum's brow knotted. 'Apparently Camilla Brown's pencil
sharpener went missing, and Josh decided to interrogate his
Classmates about it, finding evidence and drawing up a person of interest list. He made four kids cry.'
'Oh,' Pip said, that pit opening up in her stomach again. Yes, she was in trouble. 'OK, OK. Shall I talk to him?'
'Yes, I think you should. Now, her mum said, raising her mug and taking a noisy sip.
Pip slid off the stool with a gritted smile and padded back towards the living room.
'Hey Josh," she said lightly, sitting on the floor beside him. She muted the television.
Oil
Pip ignored him. "So, I heard what happened at school today.
Oh yeah. There's two main suspects.' He turned to her, his brown eyes lighting up. 'Maybe you can help -'
'Josh, listen to me, Pip said, tucking her dark hair behind her ears. 'Being a detective is not all it's cracked up to be. In fact... it's a pretty bad thing to be.'
'But I -'
'Just listen, OK? Being a detective makes the people around you unhappy. Makes you unhappy... she said, her voice withering away until she cleared her throat and pulled it back. 'Remember Dad told you what happened to Barney, why he got hurt?"
Josh nodded, his eyes growing wide and sad.
'That's what happens when you're a detective. The people around you get hurt. And you hurt people, without meaning to. Have to keep secrets you're not sure you should. That's why I don't do it any more, and you shouldn't either." The words dropped right down into that waiting pit in her gut, where they belonged. 'Do you understand?"
Yes...' He nodded, holding on to the s as it grew into the next word. 'Sorry.'
'Don't be silly.' She smiled, folding him into a quick hug. 'You have nothing to be sorry for. So, no more playing detective?'
'Nope, promise."
Well, that had been easy.
'Done,' Pip said, back in the kitchen. I guess the missing pencil sharpener will forever remain a mystery.'
Ah, maybe not,' her mum said with a barely concealed smile. 'I bet it was that Alex Davis, the little shit.' Pip snorted.
Her mum kicked Pip's shoes out of her way. 'So, have you heard from Ravi yet?'
'Yeah.' Pip pulled out her phone. 'He said they finished
about fifteen minutes ago. He'll be over to record soon.'
'OK. How was today?'
'He said it was rough. I wish I could be there.' Pip leaned against the counter, dropping her chin against her knuckles.
'You know you can't, you have school,' her mum said. It wasn't a discussion she was prepared to have again; Pip knew that. 'And didn't you have enough after Tuesday? I know I did.'
Tuesday, the first day of the trial at Aylesbury Crown Court, and Pip had been called as a witness for the prosecution. Dressed in a new suit and a white shirt, trying to stop her hands from fidgeting so the jury wouldn't see. Sweat prickling down her back. And every second, she'd felt his eyes on her from the defendant's table, his gaze a physical thing, crawling over her exposed skin. Max Hastings.
The one time she'd glanced at him, she'd seen the smirk behind his eyes that no one else would see. Not behind those fake, clear-lens glasses anyway. How dare he? How dare he stand up there and plead not guilty when they both knew the truth? She had a recording, a phone conversation of Max admitting to drugging and raping Becca Bell. It was
There. Max had confessed when she threatened to tell everyone his secrets: the hit-and-run and Sal's alibi. But it hadn't mattered anyway; the private recording was inadmissible in court. The prosecution had to settle for Pip's recounting of the conversation instead. Which she'd done, word for word... well, apart from the beginning of course, and those same secrets she had to keep to protect Naomi Ward.
"Yeah it was horrible,' Pip said, 'but I should still be there.' She should; she'd promised to follow this story to all of its ends. But instead, Ravi would be there every day in the public gallery, taking notes for her. Because school wasn't optional: so said her mum and the new headteacher.
Pip, please,' her mum said in that warning voice. "This week is difficult enough as it is. And with the memorial tomorrow too. What a week.'
Yep,' Pip agreed with a sigh.
"You OK?" Her mum paused, resting a hand on Pip's shoulder.
Yeah. I'm always OK.'
Her mum didn't quite believe her, she could tell. But it didn't matter because a moment later there was a rapping of knuckles against the front door: Ravi's distinctive pattern. Long-short-long. And Pip's heart picked up to match it, as it always did.
FILE NAME :
A Good Girl's Guide to Murder: The Trial Hastings (update 3).wav of Max
pip
Hello pip fitz amobi here and a welcome back to a good girl's
Murder: The Trial of Max Hastings. This is the third update, so if you haven't yet heard the first two mini-episodes, please go back and listen to those before you return. We are going to cover what happened today, the third day of Max Hastings' trial, and joining me is Ravi Singh...
pip
...Who has been watching the trial unfold from the public gallery. So today started with the testimony from another of the victims, Natalie da Silva. You may well recognize the name; Nat was involved in my investigation into the Andie Bell case. I learned that Andie had bullied Nat at school, and had even sought and distributed indecent images of her on social media. I believed this could be a possible motive and, for a time, I considered Nat a person of interest. I was entirely wrong, of course. Today, Nat appeared in Crown Court to give evidence about how, on 24 February 2012 at a calamity party, she was allegedly drugged and sexually assaulted by Max Hastings, the charges listing one count of sexual assault and one count of assault by penetration. So, Ravi, can you take us through how.
Her testimony went?
ravi
Yeah. So, the prosecutor asked Nat to establish a timeline of that evening, when she arrived at the party, the last instance she looked at the time before she began to feel incapacitated,
What time she woke up in the morning and left the house. Nat said that she only has a few hazy snatches of memory: someone leading her into the back room away from the party and laying her on a sofa, feeling paralyzed, unable to move and someone lying beside her. Other than that, she described herself as being blacked out. And then, when she woke up the next morning, she felt dreadful and dizzy, like it was the worst hangover she'd ever had. Her clothes were in disarray and her underwear had been removed.
pip
And, to revisit what the prosecution's expert witness said on Tuesday about the effects of benzodiazepines like Rohypnol, Nat's testimony is very much in line with what you'd expect. The drug acts like a sedative and can have a depressant effect on the body's central nervous system, which explains Nat's feeling of being paralyzed. It feels almost like being separated from your own body, like it just won't listen to you, your limbs aren't connected any more
ravi
Right, and the prosecutor also made sure the expert witness repeated, several times, that a side effect of Rohypnol was 'blacking out', as Nat said, or having anterograde amnesia, which means an inability to create new memories. And I think the prosecutor wants to keep reminding the jury of this point, because it will play a significant part in the testimonies of all the victims; the fact that they don't remember exactly what happened because the drug impacted their ability to make memories
pip
And the prosecutor was keen to repeat that fact regarding Becca Bell. As a reminder, Becca recently changed her plea to guilty, accepting a three-year sentence, despite a defence team who were confident they could get her no jail time due to her being a minor at the time of Andie's death, and the circumstances surrounding it. So yesterday, Becca gave her evidence by video link from prison, where she will be for the next eighteen months
ravi
Exactly. And, like with Becca, today the prosecution was keen to establish that they both only had one or two alcoholic drinks the night of the alleged attacks, which couldn't possibly.
ravi
Account for the level of intoxication. Specifically, Nat said she only drank one 330-millilitre bottle of beer all night. And she stated, explicitly, who gave her that drink on her arrival: Max
pip
And how did Max react, while Nat was giving her evidence?
ravi
From the public gallery. I can only really see him from the side or the back of his head. But he seems to be acting the same way he has since Tuesday. This sort of calm, very still demeanour, eyes turned to whoever's in the witness box as though he's really interested in what they're saying. He's still wearing those thick-rimmed glasses, and I'm one hundred per cent certain they aren't prescription lenses - I mean, my mum's an optometrist.
pip
And is his hair still long and sort of unkempt, like it was on Tuesday?
ravi
Yeah, that seems to be the image he and his lawyer have settled on. Expensive suit, fake glasses. Maybe they think his blonde, messy hair will be disarming to the jury or something
pip
Well, it's worked for certain recent world leaders
ravi
The courtroom sketch artist let me take a photo of her sketch today, and said we could post it after the press published it. You can see her impression of Max sitting there while his solicitor, Christopher Epps, cross-examines Nat on the stand.
pip
Yes, and if you'd like to look at the sketch, the appendix materials on the website you can find it on agoodgirlsguidetomurderpodcast.com. So, let's talk about the cross-examination
ravi
Yes, it was... pretty rough. Epps asked a lot of invasive questions. What were you wearing that night? Did you dress promiscuously on purpose? -showing photos of Nat that night from social media. Did you have a crush on your classmate, Max Hastings? How much alcohol would you drink co average night? He also brought up her past criminal action for assault occasioning bodily harm, implying that it made her untrustworthy. It was, essentially, a character assassination. You could see Nat getting upset, but she stayed calm, took
ravi
A few seconds to breathe and have a sip of water before answering each question. Her voice was shaking, though. It was really hard to watch.
pip
It makes me so angry that this kind of cross-examination of victims is allowed. It almost shifts the burden of proof on to them, and it isn't fair.
ravi
Not fair at all. Epps then grilled her about not going to the police the next day, if she was sure she was assaulted and who the perpetrator was. That if she'd gone within seventy-two hours, a urinalysis could have confirmed whether she even had Rohypnol in her system which, he claimed, was up for debate. Nat could only reply that she hadn't been sure afterwards, because she had no memory. And then Epps said, 'If you have no memory, how do you know you didn't consent to any sexual activity? Or that you even interacted with the defendant that night?" Nat replied that Max had made a loaded comment to her the following Monday, asking if she'd had a 'good time' at the party because he had. Epps never let up. It must have been exhausting for Nat
pip
It seems this is his tactic for Max's defence. To somehow undermine and discredit each of us as witnesses. With me, it was his claim about how convenient it was that I had Max to use as a male patsy, to try make Becca Bell and her alleged manslaughter sympathetic. That it was all part of the 'aggressive feminist narrative' I've been pushing with my podcast
ravi
Yeah, that does seem to be the route Epps is going down.
pip
I guess that's the kind of aggressive strategy you get when your lawyer costs three hundred pounds an hour. But money is no issue for the Hastings family, of course.
ravi
It doesn't matter whatever strategy he uses; the jury will see the truth.
File Name:
The Trial of Max Hastings Appendix: Courtroom Sketch.jpg
.......
Words spliced, growing across the gaps like vines as her eyes unfocused, until her handwriting was just one writhing blur. Pip was looking at the page, but she wasn't really there. It was like that now; giant holes in her attention that she slipped right into
There was a time, not too long ago, she would have found a practice essay about Cold War escalation enthralling. She would have cared, really cared. That was who she was before, but something must have changed. Hopefully it was just a matter of time until those holes filled back in and things went back to normal.
Her phone buzzed against the desk, Cara's name lighting up
'Good evening, Miss Sweet F-A,' Cara said when Pip picked
up. 'Are you ready to Netflix and chill in the upside down?'
'Yep CW, two secs,' Pip said, taking her laptop and phone to bed with her, sliding under the duvet.
'How was the trial today?' Cara asked. 'Naomi almost went this morning, to support Nat. But she couldn't face seeing Max.'
I just uploaded the next update.' Pip sighed. 'Makes me so angry that Ravi and I have to tiptoe around it when we record, saying 'allegedly' and avoiding anything that steps over the presumption of innocence when we know he ded it. He did all of it.'
'Yeah, it's gross. But it's OK, it will be over in a week! Cara rustled in her covers, the phone line crackling. "Hey, guess what I found today?'
'What?"
'You're a meme. An actual meme that strangers are posting on Reddit. It's that photo of you with DI Hawkins in front of all the press microphones. The one where it looks like you're rolling your eyes at him while he's talking.'
'I was rolling my eyes at him."
'And people have captioned the funniest things. It's like you're the new "jealous girlfriend" meme. This one has a caption of Me... by you, and beside Hawkins it says Men on the internet explaining my own joke back to me.' She snorted. 'That's when you know you've made it, becoming a meme. Have you heard from any more advertisers?"
'Yeah,' Pip said. 'A few companies have emailed about sponsorship. But... I still don't know if it's the right thing, profiting off what happened. I don't know, it's too much to think about, especially this week.'
I know, what a week.' Cara coughed. 'So tomorrow, you
know...the memorial, would it be weird for Ravi...and
his parents, if Naomi and I were there?' Pip sat up. 'No. You know Ravi doesn't think like that, you've spoken to each other about it.'
'I know, I know. But I just thought, with tomorrow being
About remembering Sal and Andie, now we know the truth, maybe it would be weird for us to -
'Ravi is the last person who'd ever want you to feel guilty for what your dad did to Sal. His parents too. Pip paused. They lived through that, they know better than anyone.'
'I know, it's just -'
'Cara, it's OK. Ravi would want you there. I'm pretty sure he'd say Sal would've wanted Naomi there. She was his best friend.'
'OK, if you're sure.' 'T'm always sure.'
'You are. You should think about taking up gambling,'
Cara said. 'Can't, Mum's already too concerned about my addictive
personality.
'Surely mine and Naomi's fucked-uppedness helps to normalize you.'
Not enough, apparently,' said Pip. 'If you could try a bit harder, that would be great.'
That was Cara's way of getting through the last six months; her new normal. Hiding behind the quips and one-liners that made others squirm and fall silent. Most people don't know how to react when someone jokes about their father who murdered a person and kidnapped another. But Pip knew exactly how to react: she crouched and hid behind the one- liners too, so that Cara always had someone right there next to her. That was how she helped.
'Note taken. Although not sure my grandma can cope with
any more. You know Naomi's had this new idea: apparently she wants to burn all of Dad's stuff. Grandparents obviou said no and got straight on the phone to our therapist.
' Burn itb?
I know, right?" Cara said. 'She'd accidentally summon a demon or something. I probably shouldn't tell him; be still thinks Naomi will turn up one day.'
Cara visited her dad in Woodhill Prison once a fortnight. She said it didn't mean she'd forgiven him, but, after all, he was still her dad. Naomi had not seen him once and said she never would.
'So, what time does the memorial - hold on, Grandpa's talking to me... yes?' Cara called, her voice directed away from the phone. 'Yeah, I know. Yeah, I am.'
Cara's grandparents - her mum's parents - had moved into the house with them last November, so Cara had some doctor- ordered stability until she finished school. But April was almost over, and exams and the end of school were fast approaching. Too fast. And when summer arrived, they would put the Wards' house on the market and move the girls back to their home in Great Abington. At least they'd be close when Pip started university in Cambridge. But Little Kilton wasn't Little Kilton without Cara, and Pip quietly wished the summer
would never come.
'OK. Goodnight Grandpa.' 'What was that?'
Oh, you know, it's gone ten thirty so it's suuuuuuuper late and past "lights out" time and I should have been in bed hours ago and not chatting to my "girlfriends". Plural. At this rate, I'll probably never have a girlfriend, let alone multiple, plus no one has said "lights out" since like the seventeen hundreds,' she huffed.
"Well, the light bulb was invented in 1879 so -'
"Ugh, please stop. Have you got it lined up?"
'Almost," Pip said, dragging her finger across the mousepad. 'We're on episode four, yes?"
This had started in December, when Pip tirst realized Cara wasn't really sleeping. Not surprising, really; lying in bed at night is always when the worst thoughts come. And Cara's were worse than most. If only Pip could stop her listening to them, distract her into sleep. As kids, Cara was always the first one to go at sleepovers, her light snores disrupting the end of the cheesy horror film. So Pip tried to recreate those childhood sleepovers, calling Cara while they binge-watched Netflix together. It worked. As long as Pip was there, awake and listening, Cara eventually fell asleep, her soft breaths whistling through the phone.
Now they did it every night. They'd started with shows Pip could legitimately argue had 'educational value'. But they'd been through so many that the standard had slipped somewhat. Still, at least Stranger Things had some historical quality.
'OK, ready?' Cara said.
'Ready." It had taken them several attempts to get the
Shows to run in exact synchronization; Cara's laptop had a slight delay so she pressed play on one and Pip went on go.
'Three,' Pip said.
'Two.'
'One.'
'Go.'
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